


Tranquility

by Darkest_Day



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Matchmaker Cayde, Post Red War, The Dawning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 19:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13347966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkest_Day/pseuds/Darkest_Day
Summary: In one sitting, Banshee notices Cayde's new scarf for the first time. Twice. He remembers guns and he remembers other Exo's and he doesn't really remember a lot more than that, but she puts her hand over his every time she sees him to remind him of the last time he spoke to her.





	Tranquility

He remembers the War. He remembers a lot of wars; he can’t keep them straight. All wars feel the same, they’re _loud_ and the sky lights up with red skies and orange clouds. He looks up when he reloads, wondering if it’s a reflection of the blood under his feet or if nature herself goes cold when they battle. Maybe his mind just overlays the red hue, he can’t imagine what fighting a war in bright blue skies would feel like. It’s like he’s stuck in phase 3 of a reboot, he doesn’t have much short-term memory. He can remember bits and pieces of yesterday and the day before, sometimes more than others. Over time things that happened and pieces of conversation just become fact. He understands the process now, he doesn’t beat himself up over not remembering faces when he knows in time that he will remember them again. He lives through each day weeks behind. 

He remembers the War after it has already come and gone. He sits in his office and pours over what he knows and stitches the pieces of it together. He can never remember what type of gun he likes to use until it’s in his hand and it feels right. He ties a length of ribbon on his favourites so he knows which ones to go back to and which ones to take with him. Sometimes his little Ghost bumps up against his hand to direct him. He’s a good little Ghost but he isn’t his ghost. He doesn’t have a ghost, he isn’t a Guardian. This ghost belonged to someone else but stays with him, or did he fix him? The Ghost can’t talk, he was brought in dead and ghosts are nothing like guns but he put him together again. No, he didn’t fix this one. Ghosts are like guns actually, they can be taken apart and put back together but they can’t be fixed. Ghosts are precious like guns are worthy of protection.  

No no, he’s got this all wrong. The Ghost followed him here and the ghost isn’t his and Banshee has no Light to speak of, this Ghost is waiting for something and spends his time here in his study. But he’s still trying to think of the War and he gets distracted by the little drone who leaves sometimes for days without a word. He has pieces of ghosts, real dead ones and he knows he’s tried to fix them but it didn’t work.  

He opens a drawer and there’s a gun in there. Guns have memories, not real ones but he knows them when he sees them. The sidearm is snapped in two and he remembers making it, but he knows it was also a few reboots ago. He remembers the way her face lit up when she saw it; when he handed it to her. He remembers or - maybe the gun does - the way she swung her legs over the counter and wound her arms around his middle. He got a faceful of short wavy hair and he still remembers that. He won’t forget that as long as he has this.  

He doesn’t remember that he loved her but he knows a previous version of him did. 43 other Banshee’s that other people knew but he didn’t. He barely knows the 44th version of himself but that’s okay. Reboots don’t work anymore but he tried to reboot himself so many times but it just made it worse. Her name was Gallida, he thinks. Can’t recall her last name or her fireteam but he knows her name and he knows it has something to do with Venus. These memories feel like he’s watching them from the outside, he’s looking at himself with a warlock in his arms and he’s watching the way she puts her hand on his face.  

It was all a very long time ago. It’s not that he can’t remember everything, he can, sometimes things just get overwritten. He leaves the study and the Ghost behind and steps back out into the early morning air. It’s snowing and he knows he keeps getting dusted with it as roughhousing guardians toss their snowballs too close to him and they break across the walls. Sometimes he laughs at the cold of it and other times he’s bothered. Mostly he just stares at them as they play, sometimes he watches them tackle each other and roll around on the ground. It’s early that day and Amanda comes up to him, the scarf she’s wearing looks brighter than he remembered, she walks over to him and puts her hand over the top of his and he remembers the last time he saw her. It doesn’t always work that well, he doesn’t always recall what they’ve talked about. Sometimes he draws a blank. He wonders if another reboot would help, turn him into a blank slate. Then he shakes his head because it didn't work last time he tried it and he doesn't think it'll work this time. He looks at Amanda, looks at her hand on his and the patient look on her face. He doesn't know how long she's been there. “I have something for you.” He says, then he steps away from her and retreats back into his office. His study? His room? He steps inside and looks at the Ghost for a moment, trying to hold tight to what he was here for.

The shadow of Amanda's hand is on his and he grabs the gun from the shelf, that feels familiar. He had spent months and months working on it, trying so hard to carefully recall all the details of it. He never forgot a gun, and this one was special. Extra special, Amanda was special. He turned around and went back into the early air, Amanda's cheeks were pink and he didn't know if it was from cold or from what he had in his hands. She had a hand over her mouth, he held the shotgun in his. “Oh, Banshee, you—“

She puts her hand on the barrel, her eyes are wet. “You remembered every detail.” She doesn't lift it from his hands, she pulls off her glove and runs her fingers over the intricate carvings along the side. “Did you carve this yourself..?”

He looks at her, looks at the way her smile lit up brighter than all the lanterns and even the Traveler he liked to look at sometimes. “Yes.”

Her hand is over her mouth again, she lifts the gun from his hands, finally, testing its weight in her hands. “Does it shoot?” She asks, her voice breathless.

“Yes.” Is his reply, she reaches over to him and takes his hand, he holds her soft skin.

“Come with me, to the Range.” She says, he only nods. The Tower is quiet and no one needs him right now, he looks at her hand then steps away from her, winding around the counter and out to the main part. She's still grinning at him with all this hope in her eyes. He follows her, she's carrying the Chaperone cradled to her chest like it were a child. When they get there she loads it like an expert and he watches her. After she unloads a few rounds into a target she sets the shotgun down and comes over to him, she puts her arms around his neck and he puts his arms around her, her lips are soft on his cheek and he peers in bewilderment.

“Thank you so much.” Her voice is so soft and small and he thinks Amanda is much too tough to have so much softness in her like this. But he forgets the quirks of her personality sometimes, he forgets she's both. He still remembers where he is, she's an anchor. She always touches his hand at the end of the conversation to help him remember what she said the next time she touches him. He doesn't always remember that she does it and sometimes her hand confuses him.

“I have something for you, too,” she says, he looks surprised at that. She's still in his arms and steps half a step away from him, he lets his arms fall from her. “Hold out your hands.” She instructs, he cups them together and she puts a small device in his hand. He looks at it, she presses a button on the side of it and it lights up. “This is a voice recorder.” She says, he's watching her dark lashes fanned out over her cheeks before he watches what her hands are doing. “You press this button and it starts recording. Press this one, and it stops.” She was laying her fingers on each one. “It creates a different recording each time you press it, scroll through them with these ones. And delete them by holding this one down, it'll beep, then keep holding it and it'll be gone.” Every time he listened to this recording he remembered that little smile of hers.

That evening he's still trying to remember the War. It's Cayde who distracts him, and he knows Cayde because Cayde is metal like him. “I saw what you got Amanda.” He starts, his elbows are on the counter. What did he get Amanda? Oh, right. “That's.. I mean I'm impressed you remembered that one.” He knows he's grinning but he's sure his face doesn't transcribe that very well. So far he doesn't always remember to record conversations but the recorder is always on him since that morning. Or had it been a few days? “What do you think of Amanda?”

Banshee sits on that one for a moment. “I remember her.” He says, finally. “She touches my hand and I remember”

He can recognize a grin on Cayde’s face unless he’s imagining it. But he thinks he sees it, or maybe he just hears it in his voice. He doesn’t know how he knows he just knows. He looks at his hand and it’s made of metal and mesh just like him. “You take care of her now, y’hear?" Cayde says, waving a finger at him. Banshee only rumbles a noise in response. He doesn’t remember when Cayde leaves but he sits in the room behind the counter and listens to Amanda’s voice in the recording. Listens to the other recordings he took too. There are only two others, both uninteresting. He deletes them with no trouble and leans back in the chair, the Ghost is nowhere to be seen and sometimes he thinks he imagines him. 

That night he does remember the War. The Red War. He remembers the sound of sirens and the way everyone’s knees buckled when they heard it. He remembers the earthquake of explosions rolling through the Tower just before the sirens went off. Now that he’s remembered the sirens he knows he won’t forget them. His hands had flown to guns and instinct had taken over. The guns in his hands were the right guns and he took them with him when he left. He went into the City to prepare evacuation routes, instinctive, embedded deep into his core and his system. Those sirens, air raid sirens, loud and piercing and long. The sound started low and rolled up to an intense whine and held that note for what felt like minutes. It rolled back down and at its lowest point, it began to rise again. Air raid sirens. The sound that triggered each primal processing he had left, the sound that brought him back to the horrors of war. Blood and guts and torture and dirt and sand and burning fire and icy rain and flashbacks of memories he knew were his but felt like they weren’t. He stayed until the last ship evacuated, he stayed until the sirens stopped. A lot of it is missing, he doesn’t know what he did he just knows he turned into something else for a little while. He shot a lot of bullets and he destroyed a lot of large hulking creatures. Then he remembers standing outside the walls looking back at it. Smoke still billowed and fires still raged and the Traveler was trapped under a net. Or not, it was encased in something wasn’t it? 

He doesn’t remember when the Light disappeared, he has none to speak of so it wouldn’t have changed whatever he was doing.  

The next time he saw Amanda she touched his hand and he remembered her eyelashes fanning over her cheeks. This time he squeezed her hand. Had he done that before? She looked so surprised at it. He had to have done that before, he’s always liked Amanda. He doesn’t remember their conversation later. He doesn’t remember it until he sees her again. This time he remembers to record it. 

Cayde finds him again, he’s wearing a scarf wound around his neck and it’s large and fluffy and he assumes it’s caught on his face, it would get caught on his own face. He can’t see the lights in his mouth when he talks. He always knows Cayde, he knows metal better than flesh. “What?” He asks, voice low. 

“Amanda likes chocolate.” At the mention of her name, he clicks record. Sometimes when he thinks of her he clicks record. There are hours of static he pours over and deletes after listening to it. Cayde stares at the device in his hand, he doesn’t mention it.  

"What?" He asks again, his tone more curious now. 

“Amanda likes chocolate. Y’know, chocolate. I think she likes the ones with booze in ‘em too." 

"I know what chocolate is," he retorts. "Why are you telling me?" That’s when he noticed Cayde is wearing this scarf, it’s looped around his neck and thick, it looks soft. 

"I’m just saying, think about it." Cayde saunters off and the light in the recorder is on so he stops recording. In his mind, he’s smiling at it. He looks around and it’s snowing again but the lanterns are gone, the cold feels nice. He’s been trying to think about what Cayde said, he keeps getting distracted but he’s thinking about it. He sells a few more guns and makes conversation with Guardians and keeps shutting the recording off whenever he notices he’s been recording the idle chatter.  

Later Banshee is walking around the City below the Tower, admiring the still falling snow cheerfully. He might not remember everything that happens to him very well but he knows he’s not that down about it. He’s got ways to get around it, and now he’s been remembering when they got back to the new Tower and when everyone could come back to it. Amanda had asked him his name and he remembered wondering why Amanda had hugged him tight and he turned the recording off and kept moving. 

He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but he’d know it when he saw it. He did. He bought the box and stared at them, pleased with himself. Pleased he remembered. He thought about asking Cayde it this was right or not, he hoped it was. She wasn’t in the Hangar when he went there, so he went back to his spot and continued tinkering. More guns and more bullets and more metal. It was good work. Honest work. He never forgot a gun. 

The next day he goes to find her again. He only remembered because he left them where he would find them. He finds her with her bare hands elbow deep in a sparrow, when she sees him her face lights up and she pulls her hands free from his. Banshee just blinks at her as she wipes her hands dry and walks up to him. Her hand falls on his and he squeezes her fingers, she leaves a smear of oil on his burnt yellow finger plates and he’s no stranger to it. He has the box tucked under his arm but forgets he has it as she greets him. He only remembers some of their last conversation and he’s been recording since he saw her. He remembers the box when her hand slips away from him and holds it for her, did he get this right? "Banshee..?" She asks, her voice is so soft. Is that hope he hears? Or is he dreaming? 

"Amanda?" He echoes, unsure why she’s confused. Is she confused? 

Then her cheeks are a little pink, "meet me later?" She asks. "Out in the courtyard. Sixteen hundred hours." 

"I will." He says, she touches his hand again and turns away. He leaves. He doesn’t know what ‘later’ is and he doesn’t want to forget so he doesn’t go back to his desk or his guns. While he stands there he remembers she told him a time, there’s still seven hours left but he doesn’t want to forget this. So he waits there for her, running bare hands together to keep warm. Two hours in Cayde waltzes over to him. He’s wearing this handmade scarf that he’s hastily untangling from the moving edges of his face. He hasn’t seen it before, he’s going to tear it if he doesn’t stop tugging on it like that. 

"Banshee!" He says. His voice loud in the cold and he peers at him suspiciously. "Aw don’t give me that look. I’m here to—"

"Shops closed today." He interrupts. 

"No no, I’m just wondering what you’re doing here." 

"Meeting Amanda later." He rumbles, he could see the light in the recorder on again. 

"Oh! You’ve got a date?" 

"A date?" He blinks, a date? Why would it be a date? 

"Did you get the chocolate?" Cayde asks, the plates over his eyes are wriggling as he elbows him. "A date! That’s great! But wait, how long is ‘later’?"

"A few hours. It’s not a date." 

"It is a date," Cayde says quickly with a wagging finger, then he looks closely at him. He’s so damn tall. Has he always been this tall? "Why are you here so early?" 

"I’m not going to forget." 

Cayde stands with his jaw open, banshee thinks he looks ridiculous like that. He frowns, in his head he frowns, at least. Cayde’ll know it. "Hey hey, don’t give me that look." He’s waving his hands in front of him and he looks like a loon. "I’m just... surprised you remembered."

"I don’t forget everything." He replies sullenly. He hears them, sometimes, saying unkind things to him. They think he won’t remember and they think he’s damaged. Maybe he is, he knows reboots don’t clear the fog but he wonders if another will help anyway. They think he won’t remember so they say things and he knows he won’t remember but sometimes he does. He remembers enough. 

"No, no I’m not saying that. Come on, you know me, buddy." He says, his hand is heavy on his shoulder. Why is Cayde touching him? What were they talking about? He knew Cayde, he knew metal better than he knew flesh. "Amanda’s a good girl, anyone she dates has to be approved by me." He points his thumb at his own chest as he speaks and his other hand is still on Banshee's shoulder. 

"It’s not a da—" he gives his head a shake, blinks at the other Exo. "Is it a date?" 

"Yeah buddy, yeah it is. Be good to her, okay? Keep doing what you’re doing." 

"I won’t forget her." He says. He means it. He makes it a bow and repeats it again and again and again and again. Someone comes up to him and asks about a gun and he goes with them to his desk and processes the transaction and he won’t forget her. He won’t forget her. He walks back to their meeting point and looks up at the grey sky and he _will never forget_ if he has any say in the matter. 

When she gets there she’s wearing a coat tied around her narrow waist and she’s wearing a hat on her head and she smiles at him. She touches his hand. "I didn’t forget," is the first thing he says. Her lips pull into a smile she tries to stifle, he thinks she shouldn’t try to keep herself from smiling. 

"I knew you wouldn’t." She says, she lets go of his hand as they start to walk but he grabs her hand again. Maybe he remembers guns because he touches them, he knows the stories and some memories when his hand is on them. Maybe e remembers Amanda because she touches his hand all the time. They walk with their hands joined, he wants to remember this. He knows how to make sure he will remember. 

They go for dinner, Banshee forgets what he orders as soon as he says it, they both order coffee and he asks her if it’s a date. When she took off her hat her hair was a mess and he kept noticing it for the first time. She goes a bit pink, asks him what he thinks. 

He looks at her and in his mind, he smiles. "Are you smiling? Your eyes go.." She doesn’t seem sure how to describe it and drops her hands back into her lap, they’d been trying to shape his eyes in the air in front of her. 

"Oh, yeah, I am." He replies, her smile is back again. He doesn’t record this date, he instead takes her hand sometimes across the table to cement these moments in his head. He takes a sip of coffee and holds her hand so the taste of it will remind him too. He forgets parts of the date, little things, he doesn’t forget the moments her hand is in his. Pieces of his memory are gone and sometimes he stares at her and doesn’t remember what he’s just said. She doesn’t seem to mind, she just gets him talking again and he rumbles on about something he knows. Most of what he can recall is dark and full of evil. The lines between reboots were blurred a lot of reboots ago. He doesn’t learn but maybe he will now, Amanda is fond of 44 and he is 44 and this is the version of him that likes her. 

It’s snowing when they step outside again and she takes his hand as they walk. She doesn’t mind the quiet of the street they’re on, passing under street lamps and kicking soft snow under their boots. They just walk and at some point, he thinks he should put his arm around her. Apparently he does because they’re walking like that, her head is on his shoulder and her arm is around his back. Eventually, she’s shivering and he asks if she wants to go back to the Tower. She nods. 

At her door they pause, the top of her hat is wet from melted snow, she’s looking up at him. They’ve been quiet for awhile now, he can’t think of anything to say. All his stories are dark. He has both her hands folded between his own, he thinks he’s smiling, she does too. "It’s been a nice night." She says, her voice is soft and quiet. The hall they’re standing in is dark, she’s looking at him in a way he doesn’t recognize.  

"It has," his voice is low too. His thumb is touching her chin, he can still see the faded and almost rubbed clean smear of oil and he guesses she had something to do with it but he isn’t sure. He almost loses his nerve then, she’s so pale and the pads of his fingers are black mesh. He isn’t sure if she’s said anything else to him, but he goes for it. He leans down and kisses her. He knows what he looks like even if sometimes he doesn’t recognize his reflection as him, he knows his face is mostly flat and made of metal. Her lips press against the join of his mouth and it feels so nice even if he can’t do much more than open and close his jaw. She pulls away and realigns their mouths and kisses him again, her lips catch on metal, he hadn’t noticed she’d put an arm around his neck until he was looking at her again. He knows he can’t be the best thing to kiss and he knows he can’t be the best partner either because his memory skips around too much, but she knows him and he knows her. He didn’t think he’s ever kissed anyone else, even later when he takes out the broken sidearm he designed he can’t remember kissing Gallida like that.   

Most days he wakes up thinking of her. When it starts to get warm again and once he starts selling new weapons he’s designed he’s found a pattern. It’s not perfect, very far from it. His long term memory seems to have got ahold of her now and his short term is still a struggle but he manages. She still touches his hand when she sees him and he doesn’t always notice when she touches his hand when she leaves. Some days he’s surprised to wake up in bed with her, some days he isn’t. This day he isn’t, she’s asleep with his back to him and he settles back down in the cool dark room and puts his arm around her, she shuffles back against his chest. He’s sure she minds when he forgets a conversation they’ve had but he tries hard not to. He still has all the recordings. 

Banshee wasn’t going to forget Amanda. The next time he sees that Ghost he's following behind a new Guardian and Banshee practically glows with pride. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be working on another chapter of From Stars, and I swear it's coming. Let me know what you think of this, your comments mean everything to me. Tumblr is @ofaDyingStar, if you want. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, I love all of you.


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